FDR also thought he needed Stalin’s help to finish the war with Japan. Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan 2 to 3 months after the war in Europe ended. He did keep that promise, declaring war on Japan exactly 3 months after Germany surrendered. But it turned out we didn’t need his help so much because of the atomic bomb, and that enabled Stalin to impose a communist regime in North Korea (as well as annexing a number of Japanese islands).
Thank God we didn’t need Stalin’s “help” with Japan, or else Japan would have been divided, like Korea and Germany.
The A-bomb had not yet been tested. Had the bomb been a failure, or the fanatical Japanese STILL not surrendered, we would have needed the Soviet Army to help finish Japan.
yes, we probably could have done it alone. But to kill a half million US soldiers when you could throw red Army into the fight would have been pig headed stupid.
Like in Berlin for example. Ike was fast to pick up on that and give the Red Army “the honor” of taking Berlin. That was 81,000 dead and 280,000 wounded we avoided.